"the Nature Conservancy, which pays rice farmers to flood their fields
for the few crucial weeks each fall and spring. Rice growers routinely
flood their fields for irrigation and to decompose crop residue after
harvest; through the conservation program, named BirdReturns, they do so during periods when the fields would have been dry."

"A
team of ecologists and economists figured out how much to compensate
the farmers for this change. They ran “reverse auctions” in which
landowners specified the lowest payment that would entice them to flood
their fields for a given four- to eight-week period.

This
auction system adjusts payments to farmers’ costs. For example,
flooding during the end of the spring migration season is trickier to
fit into an annual rice-growing schedule, so bids — and payments — are
higher then. The auction model is also flexible when the weather
fluctuates. The early years of the program occurred during California’s
prolonged drought, but abundant rainfall in 2017 meant that BirdReturns
could dial back the amount of pop-up wetland it procured this year."

"The team predicts the birds’ migratory paths using crowdsourced data from amateur bird-watchers
and combines that data with satellite images of surface water, enabling
the establishment of temporary wetlands at the right times and places."

"My research looked at a conservation group’s program in Uganda that made
annual payments to farmers if they refrained from chopping down
forestland that they owned. The approach turned out to be a remarkably inexpensive way both to protect forests and to reduce carbon emissions."

"Buying up the forest outright and turning it into traditional reserves
not only would have cost more money, but it would have displaced
thousands of people from their homes."

"In
the Ugandan setting, a ban would deprive poor people of much-needed
income generated by selling timber or using newly cleared land for
agriculture.

Moreover,
a market-based approach can balance conservation goals with critical
needs like growing food. If a certain landowner is outstanding at
farming — producing a lot of food for the community — it could very well
make sense for her to continue to farm her land, even if doing so means
clearing some forest.

Ideally,
less productive farmers will participate in the program because food
production — and profit — sacrificed by keeping their forest intact is
small.

That’s
why proper pricing is important. If you offer an appropriate payment
for conservation, the best farmers will decline it because they can earn
more by expanding their farms, while the mediocre ones will sign up.
Markets can help us find those opportunities."